If you come from a normal/non abusive background..

[heylol]

I come from a not great background where lots of abusive and downright strange things went on. I always knew something was wrong...but over the years, especially with talking to others about their backgrounds it became clear to me that I have no idea what normal actually is.

As I try and process and move on from everything I worry that I'm blowing it out of proportion and making it harder for myself. Surely even happy, well adjusted, supportive families have things go wrong?

So my question is, if you would say you come from a great family and had a good upbringing, get on well with your family etc. what is the worst thing that has happened within that rosy picture?

I'd also be interested to know what dynamics you have if you have a happy family.

Our dynamic was that my dad was an extremely angry alcoholic and my mum roped me into trying to manage that and at the same time pretend it wasn't happening. I am guessing that isn't most people's experience?

I was brought up in a totally non-abusive family. We are all fairly calm, rational, not overly emotional people. We still get on really well and enjoy each other's company. I can't think of anything traumatic or dodgy that happened during my childhood. No crises, no addictions, no violence,no yeling, no break-ups, no financial problems. I realise I am very lucky.

MN has educated me in quite how many people have abusive or dysfunctional families and how much effect that has on their ability to make good relationship choices themselves. When I first came on here, I was genuinely (ignorantly) baffled as to why so many women preferred to be in an abusive relationship than be single. And baffled as to why so many women seemed not to recognise their partner's (or other family member's) behaviour as abusive.

I also didn't get why they seemed to need MNers to confirm it was abusive in order to feel justified in leaving, rather than realising they had the right to end a relationship for literally whatever reason they want. I understand better now.

I hear you, @heylol. Though I'm not even sure my parents would have enough consciousness about their upbringings to say 'At least I did better than that', because that would mean acknowledging their own parents' failings. And yes to a weird blindness about extended family members -- I have an uncle who has quite clearly been suffering untreated MH issues for his entire adult life, which has led him to some desperately odd decisions which have impacted on his wife and now adult son, who is estranged from him, but my mother absolutely cannot acknowledge her brother's mental fragility, in part because it would involve acknowledging her father's similar condition. (I only found out after his death from someone else who thought I knew, that he'd been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for electro-shock therapy on a number of occasions.)

Unmarkedbythat .I think that is so true! Lots of families strive to be "perfect" but there is no such thing.I find it interesting that one child can have totally different memories than their DS/DB even though they have been brought up in a similar way.

My mum hit me a few times when she really lost it. But literally perhaps five times across my whole childhood. I do remember but it's not a traumatic memory... it was more the impact of seeing that she had totally lost control. Hence why hitting children really doesn't work as discipline!

The worst part was probably that my brother and I never got along. He could make me pretty miserable at times. This is why I roll my eyes when I see people contemplating a second child to give their first the experience of a wonderful sibling...

I also didn't get why they seemed to need MNers to confirm it was abusive in order to feel justified in leaving, rather than realising they had the right to end a relationship for literally whatever reason they want. I understand better now.

It's so funny to read this because it does sound mad. I came to mn for confirmation that my relationship was abusive and that it was ok for me to leave! I finally left, four years later! After speaking to women's aid and others who also confirmed it was abusive and it was ok for me to do so. I hadn't thought how it might look/sound to someone else before now.

I had an abusive homelife as a child. Two alcoholic parents, CSA, violence and so on. I want very much for my dd to have as normal upbringing as she can, but I worry I don't know how to achieve this. I have left her dad now, he was the abusive relationship I was in. I worry that having two separated parents will damage her, but I think if I'd stayed living with him - while he was never physically abusive, he was mentally abusive, financially abusive and very controlling - I think seeing me living the way I was, could not have been good for her either. I hope that having two separated parents is the lesser of two evils. I just want to make sure she doesn't turn out as messed up and confused as I was/still am sometimes. It's a real worry for me.... I'd actually just been sitting around the house worrying about it before I opened this thread!

When I was 7 I spent a few moments feeling guilty that my lack of organisation had pushed my father into swearing in frustration (muttering under his breath "I've been dashing around like a blue-arsed fly all morning")

so I'd say I probably had a non-abusive background

People would shout every now and again. I don't recall my parents shouting at each other.

We had a decent-sized house which was no worse-equipped than most people in the seventies (except for a telly) but had very little spare cash and relied on hand-me-downs.

When school interactions tipped over into meanness and bullying my parents were totally unequipped to deal with it. (As an example, we were all shocked to discover that "just shows how badly you've been brought up!" was not the crushing put-down we'd been led to believe.)

Two of my sisters had issues following an academically-able older sister through school - both were bright (decent degrees, sufficiently successful careers now) but always felt they were judged as not living up to expectations. (Didn't help that my mother saw comments like "so what happened to the other two percent" as encouraging a child to perform better...) Practically all of us had a problem with not knowing How To Learn.

Most of us had issues over relationships and sex - combination of church family, parents who ignored The Sixties because they were in baby mode throughout, aunts' and uncles' hurried marriages all ending in divorce, and a (never formally diagnosed but generally accepted) tendency to AS behaviours.

One of us had (has?) an eating disorder. Most of us use food as a source of comfort and interest.

As adults we get on ok (note I'm 3 hours north of the family home, another sister 3 hours south-west). We've overcome the various resentments and kept hold of the enjoyment and love.

When we were younger D1 was the dreamy one we would laugh at, D2 was the one who spent money like water and lost her key, D3 was responsible and hardworking but needed careful handling, D4 was Weird and would read a book no matter what she was supposed to be doing, D5 had a temper and needed to watch her weight, and S was selfish and overindulged and far too Worldly for his own good (none of that is true, btw, or at least no more than any of the rest of us).

Worst thing that happened growing up? Hm. We'd probably all say something different, because nothing particularly bad happened to the family. Deaths of grandparents obviously affected my parents emotionally but impact on family life was minimal. Dealing with my grandmother's last years with dementia was stressful, as was my other grandmother's life after her stroke. My mother's death happened when we were all adults.

@Anycrispsleft

I come from an abusive background so I can't help you but just wanted to say, I don't think you can compare a normal family on its worst day with the constant drip drip drip of anxiety that you live with in a dysfunctional family. There's not violence and chaos every day, and sometimes even nice things happen, but there's always that threat that if you do or say something even slightly wrong, or just the woman in the shop is a bit short with them or whatever that's it, it all kicks off. I think that has a profound effect on a child in a way that one or two really bad days wouldn't.

I think this is an excellent way to put it.

My upbringing was in many ways idyllic - rural, free range upbringing with plenty of toys, educational resources, friends, family and neighbours.

But my mum had severe mental health issues, and was in constant conflict with my older siblings. None of us were bad kids, and it's hard to get someone to understand that my mum wasn't just "normal" strict, she was ready to fly off the handle into emotional meltdowns. Many of my earliest memories were of her detailing at length the abuse she suffered, or me comforting her in a meltdown.

(I don't blame her for it - she suffered neglect from her parents and abuse from her first husband)

So the constant watchfulness is a good way to describe it. On balance I'd say my childhood WAS good. But always with the awareness that my mum wasn't just my mum, she was a ticking time bomb that I felt responsible for managing.

(as for my dad - very loving, wonderful man, but his one failing was not doing anything to ameliorate the worse effects of her issues on us)

No abuse in my family but I have a parent with questionable parenting skills, which I’d say is the worst thing that has happened in my family.

I have a perfectly amicable relationship with my father but he is emotionally absent and has lived in a different country since my early teens. So essentially he is not really a dad but more like a relative that I only see once in a blue moon. He is also terrible with money and caused our family quite a bit of financial stress over the years, for example, our home never felt secure because he would always borrow money against it for businesses that would fail and we’d have to move house a lot for cheaper mortgages etc.

It's so funny to read this because it does sound mad. I came to mn for confirmation that my relationship was abusive and that it was ok for me to leave!

Exactly! I used to wonder why people got so hung up over whether a particular set of behaviours counted as abuse or not. I'd think "What does that matter? If the relationship is not making you happy, why stay in it?" Obviously actually leaving is often difficult and complicated, but the question of whether you have the right or justification to leave is not complicated at all.

@lazylinguist Not being able to see the behaviour as abusive is a huge problem. Not just in terms of leaving but if you think your life is normal when it's not you then normalize feeling bad all the time. In the end you think there's something wrong with you.

That's where you can take some power back, or start to, because you can say, oh right THIS is not acceptable and demand the other person either stops or you remove yourself from the situation. My mum always maintained that things bothered me because I was weak and oversensitive. Shortly before going NC I explained, and she accepted that in reality, a well adjusted person would never let themselves be spoken to or treated like I allowed myself to be.

Do you mind me asking how you, as someone from a non abusive background sort of know what's acceptable and not? Is it just mirroring the relationships you grew up with?

Oddly I think breaking up with a horrible bf years ago was the start of the process for me. He dumped me in a really nasty way and then wanted me back, just to carry on the drama, not solve anything. I remember really calmly telling him that I wasn't going to mess around anymore and the situation was crazy. Just "you broke up with me, fine, I'm not interested in anything you feel the need to say, bye." I still remember how shocked he was, looking back that was certainly a turning point in how I allowed others to treat me.

@lazylinguist sorry I hadn't seen your last post when I posted mine so sorry if that's confusing.

@Ilikewinter

So I would say I had a lovely upbringing, then my world crashed when mum and dad spilt up when I was 14, mainly because I had no clue it was coming. I took it hard and went off the rails for a bit and suddenly be main the main carer for my DB during school holidays because my mum had to work. I had a love hate relationship with my dad for several years.

This was my life too. If my parents were unhappy with each other they hid it very well from me and siblings.

@WishingHopingThinkingPraying

Honestly I don't think I can think of a single bad or confusing memory from my life relating to my family. They put down clear boundaries and protected me in every way they could while also giving me the freedom to grow into adulthood. The older I get the more I realise that it's the most valuable gift anyone could ever have given me.

I would have said this too, as I had an idyllic childhood in most respects, but then I thought back and I remember my Nan moving in with us when she was older.

Unfortunately, she was not always a nice person to either me or my Dad (who had the patience of a saint with everyone) but she idolised my brother and my Mum. I look back now and think that no matter how difficult it would have been for Mum she should have laid ground rules and she should have stood up to Nan more for everyone's sake

Strangely, I married someone with exactly the same life experience and he still finds it hard to forgive his Mum for not seeing what was going on with his Nan. She was lovely to him when his parents were present and vile to him when they were not. He felt disbelieved, and yet to his sister she was very different.

In both our cases the family dynamic was altered for the worse when the grandparent moved in.

My take on it is this:

It doesn't matter whether it's acceptable or not.

It's irrelevant whether the other person accepts that their behaviour is sub-optimal.

It even doesn't matter whether it's simply because I'm over-sensitive.

The relationship is making me unhappy, so I'm going to end it.

(obvious caveats about communication, willingness to change, length of relationship, therapy etc... but they're all steps in the same concept)

It really is as simple as me knowing, deep down, that I am entitled to consider my wellbeing and happiness and to take steps to secure that.

I honestly can't think of anything bad that happened in my childhood. I recognise I have been in an extremely fortunate minority though. My parents loved each other and loved us. The love and support in my family was (and still is) unconditional. Nobody even really raised voices to each other. Disagreements were discussed and resolved calmly. It was a warm, fun and welcoming household and in our teen years, our house was always the preferred place for both mine and my sisters friends to hang out. My mum is genuinely the kindest, most calm and patient human I have ever met. I only hope I can strive to create something remotely similar for my own family now that I'm a parent myself. Sadly I am not blessed with quite the same level of patience as my mum - I suspect few people are though!

It was only when I became an adult and started to work in Education that I was exposed to the realities of other sorts of childhoods and I had an enormous wave of appreciation for what I had experienced. This also came with a wave of guilt that I had lived so blissfully unaware in a bubble for so long. I had previously just naively accepted my experience as typical and took it very much for granted.

I don't know that I'll ever be able to express the extent of my gratitude to my parents for what they have given us.

I came from a strange background my mother was on and off with my dad over the years (20). We wouldn’t see our dad for 18months and at times. He would turn up and everything went on as normal. Or sometimes I would wake up and hear voices in the morning after not seeing my dad for long periods. We went on “business trips”. My dad was a drug dealer... he did “work” in the family home my mother allowed this. I remember walking to town with my mother and her finding a ball of crack in her shoe 😂.
My mother took us stealing as kids.... we were in and out of hostels along with my aunt and her children too (it was like a day out as we were cousins). We even ended up the same hostel sometimes. It sounds so bad.
So much more too much to list. You get the picture..
My mother was young when she met him and he was a lot older than her. I definitely grew up dysfunctional.

I'm from a very dysfunctional background. My dh is from a very well adjusted, loving background. The main difference between me and dh and good siblings i find is their unwavering confidence, in themselves and their worth. Not in an arrogant showy way, just an underlying strength of just knowing they are good enough. It's something i would do anything to try and instil in my dcs, it's got to be on of the greatest gifts you can give a child.

@Snofla4 are you OK now?

I don't come from an abusive background. My parents held us in mind always and tried their best.

However I don't think things were ideal. I think probably when I was a very small infant my mother was overwhelmed and very anxious. She could sometimes be volatile and have rages and storm off in the car. She could sometimes throw me out of the house as a child in a rage with me. We would always make up and she would always apologise.

My father could be quietly superior and cutting, in a strangely passive way.

There was a lot of anxiety and some obsessiveness that curtailed the possibility of living a really full and open/spontaneous family life. Underneath there was a kind of slough of depressiveness, against which I felt I had to battle to escape.

Our family was insular, with the feeling that everyone knew everyone's business, it was quite difficult to feel private. Also there was a kind of unspoken need for us all to have the same tastes in music and politics, as differences would have created too much anxiety.

There was also great difficulty in expression emotion, especially love. I knew my parents loved me because of their care and attention, but for example I would never have received a birthday card saying "To our darling Bumps, we love you and are so proud of you, love you to the moon and back" - as my parents would find that kind of expression too difficult and cringey.

But they were loving and fun and attentive, they could be firm but never cruel or punitive and they gave me far more of their time than I give my two!

So overall not abusive at all, but still with some difficulties.

Yes thanks. I think I’ve turned out well tbh.

@NotFromHere99

I'm from a very dysfunctional background. My dh is from a very well adjusted, loving background. The main difference between me and dh and good siblings i find is their unwavering confidence, in themselves and their worth. Not in an arrogant showy way, just an underlying strength of just knowing they are good enough. It's something i would do anything to try and instil in my dcs, it's got to be on of the greatest gifts you can give a child.

Is that the difference though, because I come from a happy, "normal" background and I have absolutely no self confidence and never have, I know I'm worthless. While I know plenty of people from dysfunctional backgrounds that are very confident.

Not meaning to undermine your trauma, but it's just so hard to really pinpoint the effects. For every person who suffered trauma and has x problem, there is another with the same problem who never did.

I thought I'd a normal enough upbringing my DM was unwell with depression the house was chaotic and messy but we were happy.
Sometimes DP is shocked at some of our childhood memories it was normal to us and made us all independent, we got ourselves ready for school, DM was in bed a lot his family were the opposite overly protected DM done everything for them.
I don't think that is right either his childhood had less stress and worries.

Do you mind me asking how you, as someone from a non abusive background sort of know what's acceptable and not? Is it just mirroring the relationships you grew up with?

Not consciously, no. It feels very simple and automatic to me, in a kind of "If someone isn't a nice person, I don'tlike them!" kind of way. If I thought about it, I could make a very very long list of the characteristics that would make me reject someone as a partner. Almost all men would fit into that list somewhere tbh, which is probably why at age 50 I have only had 2 actual relationships in my life. I was always willing to be single rather than go out with someone who didn't seem right. Most of the things on the list would be to do with personal preferences rather than abusive behaviours, but I think red flags jump out at me fairly easily. I had never heard of 'red flags' until MN, but whenever one is mentioned on here, I tend to think "Well yeah - obviously you wouldn't touch somebody who did/said that with a bargepole!" And when posters suggest giving a bloke the benefit of the doubt, or say it's probably nothing, or that he may be lovely in other ways, I just think "Nope." Never give him the benefit of the doubt. Always assume he's showing you what he's really like.

Happy memories and not an abusive household but parents marriage wasn't very happy, lots of shouting. My Dad was very ill and retired early and died 4 years later. I was anorexic.

My extended family are all established middle class, artists, directors, entrepreneurs. But not ours, I think I can pinpoint it to my Dad. I was born in Australia, I have a half sibling there too apparently, my Dad's child, roughly the same age as me. They migrated back to UK, then had my brother 2 years later. The relationship never resolved. I remember seeing my Dad in kitchen once when I was about 6. Then he cropped up when I was a teenager living hundreds of miles away, so I visited a few times, although his gf at the time did more of the looking after. The same gf broke up with him because she found him recording her 12 year old daughter getting dressed. I have no contact at all now. He has 7 children that I know of now. One of my step siblings is v friendly, she is younger than me, my dad married her mum after my mum. My dad was v abusive, threats threw the letter box and cameras in the living room. I once had to go to court for him because he threatened someone with a bat whilst I was in the car.

My mum was very stressed, and often would explode, I remember being thrown in the bath with clothes on, soap in my mouth, and dinner thrown at me if I didn't eat it a couple of times. She met a man when I was about 6/7. He didn't like my brother or I. He would belt us.

But as we grew up, my mum seemed to realise how wrong she had got things. She would make up excuses to step dad so we wouldn't get in trouble, enjoy spending time with me, would often buy me things.I was 20 when she left ex. She moved miles away. She came into some money when I was mid twenties and gave DB and I some, and said it was her way of saying sorry for everything that went on.

But, I'm not angry, I have been through times when I have been angry and resentful, and no doubt I will again, but it does go. My mother is a human, she clearly had a terribly abusive marriage to a man I am the spitting image of. She was poor, with limited resources and choices, she has incredibly low confidence and self esteem. She is intelligent, but dumbs herself down to be accepted by her ex and her current partner. All of this has had a huge knock on effect to me, seems less so on DB.